My old coworker swore by canned air for cleaning out power supplies

I worked with this guy Dave at a repair shop in Cleveland for about 3 years. He insisted on using canned air blasts directly into fans and transformers on every single power supply that came across our bench. I thought it was fine until I started noticing more intermittent failures on units he'd cleaned compared to my brush-and-vacuum method. Last month I actually tested 20 power supplies he'd serviced against 20 I'd done, and his had a 40% higher rate of failing under load within a week. I still brush out the big stuff, but I wonder if the cold shock from the air was cracking tiny solder joints. Anyone else notice this pattern with canned air on older gear?

2 comments

2 Comments

casey1617d ago

Noticed the same kind of thing with compressed air and old electronics. It's like when you have an old phone charger cord that's barely hanging on and a cold draft makes it act up. Just a shock to the system that pushes things over the edge.

abby_wilson5117d ago

Did I accidentally breathe on my charger again?